EP 496. Argentina Couples Trip

 

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast, where today I am in Argentina with today’s group. It seems like we’ve been here a month, we’ve been here eight days and it has been amazing, we’re on the annual couples trip for La Paz, Argentina. Joining me first, Mr. Greg Mula from New Orleans, Louisiana. Greg, how the heck are you?

Greg Mula: Doing well, Ramsey, I had a great week. Thank you very much.

Ramsey Russell: Are you the new Mister Ian?

Greg Mula: I must be, because every time I missed a shot, I could hear my voice in my head, nice shot, Mister Ian.

Ramsey Russell: You didn’t miss very many shots, though, did you?

Greg Mula: Oh, shucks, did I miss a bunch. My guide was laughing at me.

Ramsey Russell: I missed with the boaster. Well, you got better as the week went on, didn’t you?

Greg Mula: Absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: So your guide, Indio, tell me about him laughing at you.

Greg Mula: So the great thing is Indio can speak about as much English as I can speak Spanish. But somehow, you learn to communicate.

Ramsey Russell: That’s it. It’s a universal language. He’s done it a lot. You’ve done it a lot.

Greg Mula: Absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: What’s there to do?

Greg Mula: After my 5th miss in a row, he turned his back and started giggling, and I started laughing, and we just had a blast the rest of the trip. He was fantastic.

Ramsey Russell: He’s had a lot of practice.

Greg Mula: A lot of practice.

Experiencing the Hunt with Experienced Collectors

It was fabulous. There were ducks everywhere.

Ramsey Russell: So we meet in Buenos Aires. You and Nancy show up. I’m eating breakfast, having coffee. You all show up. Boom, off the flight, let’s go. We hit the ground running.

Greg Mula: We hit the ground running.

Ramsey Russell: And we were talking about today, we’ve seen the five-star crème de la crème all the way down to real Argentina. We have covered all the bases in a short amount of time, haven’t we?

Greg Mula: Absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: You’ve been to Argentina before?

Greg Mula: I think this is my fourth or fifth time, yes.

Ramsey Russell: Did you see this version of Argentina in the past?

Greg Mula: Nowhere near it. This was an immersive experience. I’ve seen Buenos Aires. I’ve experienced a little bit of Buenos Aires. But to get in the countryside, have lunch at the guide’s house, this was beyond what I could have imagined. It was that good.

Ramsey Russell: We talked about this today. 22 years my wife and I have sold hunting experiences.

Greg Mula: Yes.

Ramsey Russell: And for some people, that means showing up, pulling the trigger till the shoulder falls off, come to lodge, getting wined and dined, and going back out to do it again. I get that, I was there myself one time. But, you know, after so long of doing that, I can go do that, but then I can go see some more stuff too.

Greg Mula: Absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: And that’s one thing about this week, is we three couples were all experienced collectors.

Greg Mula: Yes.

Ramsey Russell: Let’s talk about your hunting experience. First morning, we go duck hunting, what happened?

Greg Mula: It was fabulous. There were ducks everywhere. My guide wanted me to shoot before I could see. I had trouble seeing the horizon. I had to wait. We were finished with our limit in less than an hour.

Ramsey Russell: Less than an hour?

South American Ducks Galore

Greg Mula: Less than an hour. Ringed teal. I think I killed a couple Brazilian ducks.

Ramsey Russell: Brazilian ducks. Silver teal.

Greg Mula: Silver teal.

Ramsey Russell: Any whistling ducks?

Greg Mula: I did not kill any whistling ducks opening day

Ramsey Russell: And no rosy-bills.

Greg Mula: None. I did not.

Ramsey Russell: We’re here at the last week of May, and so far nationwide, rosy-bills have been absent. Everybody’s waiting on the weather to change or something. Those birds break loose, come in. But the teal make up for it.

Greg Mula: I can tell you, I’d like to have killed a rosy-billed. But the teal were pouring in. It was fantastic.

Ramsey Russell: We were done pretty dang early.

Greg Mula: Every day

Ramsey Russell: We came back, we go. What did we do that first, we went dove hunting that first afternoon?

Greg Mula: Dove hunting that first afternoon. I did not shoot well at all.

Ramsey Russell: It happens, Greg. I can mess with the best of them.

Greg Mula: I missed it with everybody. It was really good.

Ramsey Russell: Tuesday we got up and went pigeon hunting.

Greg Mula: That was an experience.

Ramsey Russell: And I love, I tell everybody, that is my single most favorite day of the week at La Paz. Decoy and pigeons.

Greg Mula: Yes.

Ramsey Russell: In all the years, I’ve been coming here doing it, we’ve had some great shoots. But that one took the cake. We normally go out, do a field lunch, spend the day, go back out, finish up our limits. Limits: 80 a piece. And it’s like, I tell people, Greg, it’s like shooting. It’s like duck hunting with hiking boots on.

Greg Mula: Correct.

Ramsey Russell: But there were so many pigeons coming in. We were done, I think, at 9:30.

Greg Mula: I think complete three-man limit. 9:30.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Greg Mula: And the pigeons were still pouring in.

Ramsey Russell: That was an epic hunt.

Pigeon Hunting in Argentina

We had great conversation, were not rushed, experienced a lot, beautiful sunrise, got to see birds. 

Greg Mula: Epic hunt. Decoy and pigeon hunting. To me, it reminds me of dry field teal hunting. And they would bank, and I really, I could close my eyes and believe I was dry field teal hunting without the call.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, and that was my birthday. That’s the most memorable hunt of the week and that was my birthday. And I think I told the guy when we got out, all I want is to shoot my limit for lunch. And we did, handily, and came back, enjoyed a wonderful meal, great barbecue, amazing birthday cake the works. Wednesday we duck hunt again.

Greg Mula: We duck hunted again. You and I duck hunted together.

Ramsey Russell: We duck hunted together. What a killer hunt that was, Martha Martha just brought us a couple of malbec glasses of malbec.

Greg Mula: Oh, my lord.

Ramsey Russell: That wasn’t a normal fast and furious hunt, but it was perfect. You know, you and I shared a blind. You take a turn, I take a turn. We took turns together. We shot together. We shot well. We missed. We hit. And it just, to me, it was the perfect pace to shoot that number of birds.

Greg Mula: It was the perfect pace. They came in onesies, twosies, threesies. It was a perfect pace. We had great conversation, were not rushed, experienced a lot, beautiful sunrise, got to see birds. You filmed some birds. It was a fabulous hunt.

Ramsey Russell: Sometimes, you know, a wham-bam dream-type Argentina duck hunt is so fast and furious. It’s chaotic.

Greg Mula: Yes.

Ramsey Russell: Especially if I’m trying to run Char, die.

Greg Mula: Correct, correct.

Ramsey Russell: I need time for her to get out, make the marks, do that kind of stuff. And this morning was a prime example. This morning I went off, and I’m going to say I could see the shoot at seven, and at 7:20, I was done. And I had let Char pick up two birds. But it was so fast and furious, I just held her back until after the shot, unloaded the gun, and started running. Dead birds, marks and blinds and things of that nature till they were all cleaned up.

Greg Mula: That’s how it was today, I was finished, I know in less than 40 minutes. It was wham-bam, it was quick. I enjoyed the hunt. I preferred our hunt Wednesday because it was onesies, twosies. We could talk. We could watch Char work. It was not hectic. It was chaotic this morning. There were times I felt like I was dove hunting because I didn’t know which duck to shoot. It was that chaotic.

Ramsey Russell: And yesterday, I want to talk about yesterday because our wives, Anita and Nancy, went to a winery and went to some town and ate breakfast, and boy, did they have a great time. The other couple, Matt and Nicole, wanted to go Dorado fishing, which left just me and you to go to a feedlot. And we pull up, and the name of that feedlot is El Loro, which means parakeet. I’m like, boy, maybe 50 million. And we pulled up, and there were pigeons, there were doves, there were parakeets. We hunted about 50 yards apart. And I noticed that Indio kept putting more and more parakeets out in front of you, and you were shooting decoying parakeets. I, on the other hand, was if it flies, it dies, buddy, I was in the zone, and if it flew within my zone, it died. Have you ever shot decoy parakeets before?

Greg Mula: I have not. And yesterday made up for how poorly I shot the rest of the week.

Ramsey Russell: It sure did.

Greg Mula: It did. I shot well. I really felt like I was shooting mallards in a green timber hole. They banked in, they came in right on top of the mojo, and I shot. That was a great experience.

Ramsey Russell: I had a flock of about 15 or 20 come by me. They were within 25, 30 yards, but they were heading. When they passed me, they were coming. They were heading right towards your spread. I could see, and I let them come in. My guide and I both stepped out of the bushes just a minute to watch, and it was green feathers and donut holes cut through that flock left and right.

Greg Mula: I think they all died.

Ramsey Russell: I think they all did. It wasn’t pretty. Was that the first time you all also met? One day, one afternoon, you and Matt met Hector, and you all went and hunted Perdiz. Was that the first time you’d ever done that?

Greg Mula: That’s not. I’ve hunted Perdiz two times before. Much different because, on two other occasions, the outfitter trapped the Perdiz, put him in the, I don’t want to say yard, but in the vicinity of the estancia.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, they were put and taped.

Greg Mula: They were put and taped, yes.

Ramsey Russell: I didn’t know you did such a thing, that’s terrible

Greg Mula:  And we found out the second hunt, this hunt, I told Matt, I said, these are wild birds.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, yeah.

Greg Mula: It was a great experience. The great thing about it, I don’t want to exaggerate, I know we walked a mile out and a mile back, and I maybe walked off ten calories of what I’d eaten all week a nd I felt much better.

Ramsey Russell: We kid about it. We kid about it. Do you know, the first morning we were here at La Paz, we ate breakfast, and for the rest of the week, we got up and drank coffee.

Greg Mula: Couldn’t do it.

Ramsey Russell: I feel like a foie gras goose. I feel swole.

Greg Mula: I’m full.

Ramsey Russell: The first night we met, we went to dinner. We made reservations at a restaurant I had heard about. I had never been to. A lot of clients had raved about it, so we tried it. We went to a place called Fogo. Fogón Asado.

Greg Mula: Fogón Asado.

Ramsey Russell: That may have been one of the most amazing meals I’ve ever had. It wasn’t so much just what we ate, which was amazing—nine courses.

Greg Mula: Yes.

Ramsey Russell: With wine pairings.

Greg Mula: Yes.

Ramsey Russell: So we had a lot of wine and a lot of food. But the ambiance, and, I mean, that was, I would say, you know, their Michelin star aiming for it. I mean, that’s that Michelin-level type Argentina experience.

Greg Mula: It was definitely that experience. It was five-star. It was an experience. It was not just the food, it was the experience. And they brought nine courses out, gave you a little discussion or talk about what they were going to do, how they did it. It was absolutely fabulous. Nancy could not stop raving about it.

Ramsey Russell: And what got me is, like, right in the center, they had this elite parria.

Greg Mula: Yes.

Ramsey Russell: And then, like a bar going all the way around it. And we got in at 7:40. They seated us personally, they waited on us, we hung our coats, we went sat down, boom, another group came in, another group came in, another group came in, in five-minute intervals. Before you knew it, they have one seating a night, 30 people sitting around this parria. All the chefs going which ways? And I did not realize until they laid out course number nine, which is what they call pancakes. I call, what do you call, I don’t know what I call. I call it a pancake. What did they call it in France when they laid that thing out. They stuffed it crêpe. But then they took a branding, a big flat branding iron, went around everybody’s plate and branded it, seared that sugar with all that smoke coming off. And it was at that moment I realized they had just orchestrated, like a rock concert. All hands on deck, nine courses. Never missed a beat. Served in unison, and at the end, kaboom, It was done.

Greg Mula: It was done.

Ramsey Russell: It’s over. The lights came on. The concert was over. I was so stuffed, I could barely stand up. It was amazing.

Greg Mula: It was fabulous.

Ramsey Russell: Amazing wine.

Greg Mula: Yes, it was fabulous. That was one of the top two or three dining experiences I’ve ever had.

Ramsey Russell: I think so, too. I would have to say that.

Greg Mula: And I know the ladies didn’t expect it at all.

A Legacy of Family-Guided Hunts

…we’ve got a group of brothers, uncles, and just family members, about five families, all related that guide, they’re our guide staff, have been for 15 years.

Ramsey Russell: Did not expect that. Today, as we finished up our hunt, we had decided, you know, we’ve got a group of brothers, uncles, and just family members, about five families, all related that guide, they’re our guide staff, have been for 15 years. And like mine, a lot of these are younger, a lot of them are older. Some of them have aged out, some of them have come into age. They farm, and they work, and they know these marsh areas we hunt. And we decided, you know, it’s so interesting to me that when the guides come in, a lot of times on horseback, they take the duck. What happens to all those ducks you all shoot? Let me tell you what happens. They take those straps off and lay them down, and the lady folks come out and tend to them, or they go off, drink asado or shoe horses, or whatever they got. They don’t shoo them, they shot them, whatever they got to do. And I said, so I’d like to go see that. So I went last year, and they served me a, you know, did what they did with it. And so we took the ladies out there today, and that was like the complete opposite of that five-star experience. But, man, it was real art. And it started with, since the ladies weren’t coming out till 11:00, it started with, “Hey, let’s go to Peyos’ house.”

Greg Mula: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: And they dropped me off, and I walked back through his little courtyard to an outside kitchen, very much like what we’re sitting in, only a lot more rural. And we got the real gaucho experience.

Greg Mula: That was fabulous. She made coffee. She called it fried bread.

Ramsey Russell: A beignet.

Greg Mula: It’s a beignet.

Ramsey Russell: They call it a tartar.

Greg Mula: Oh, a tartar.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Greg Mula: Okay. It was fabulous.

Ramsey Russell: I watched her make it, roll it out, cut it up, drop it into lard. That was cooked over a campfire, over a fire in their little fireplace. And we had eaten some when you showed up. I had tapped out on eating those things. And then Matt came along, and we all sat there and met and talked and looked around. You know what was so funny is when Adrian, she was showing us all her pets, she had a pet cardinal. She had pet dogs, she had cats, she had chickens, she had guinea fowl, she had turkeys, she had all this stuff running around her farmyard. And she went to the fence and started yelling the name, and here comes a freaking emu.

Greg Mula: Emu right up to the fence.

Ramsey Russell: Right up to its name being called. She’s like Ellie Mae Clampett in Argentina. Then we went over and had dinner.

Greg Mula: That was fantastic.

Ramsey Russell: That was amazing experience.

Greg Mula: I like to immerse myself in the culture any way possible. This brought it all to fruition. This was the crowning point, I believe, of this hunt.

Ramsey Russell: You drive by, and you see these little farmhouses. And we’re from America.

Greg Mula: Correct.

Ramsey Russell: So we’ve got this preconception of what their kitchen must look like relative to ours. Nonetheless, they probably got gas or electricity or running water in a sink and maybe have a dishwasher or a sink to wash it in. And all the years I’ve driven by that house, all the years I’ve stopped by there to pick somebody up or drop somebody off, I never walked in her kitchen. And it was a fireplace and a wooden table. That was it and a light bulb.

Greg Mula: And then we asked, I think you asked, to wash your hands. We go outside, there’s an old-time well that we pumped by hand to get the water out.

Ramsey Russell: pump it into a basin.

Greg Mula: Into a basin. Yes.

Ramsey Russell: And you know, on the one hand, you think, well, they’re poor, they’re impoverished, they’re this, they’re that. But on the other hand, all I could think is, I was enjoying, they cooked that bread in that mud oven.

Greg Mula: That mud oven.

Ramsey Russell: They had a wood-burning fire outside, little stove to cook the lard and get the Milanessa. They cooked those wonderful, freaking amazing empanadas. Crazy good. But that’s like we were talking at the end of the table as we were eating. I said, you know, if the stock market crashes, if the U.S. power grid fails, if the Japs bomb Pearl Harbor, whatever happens that would disrupt life as I know it back home. These people get up, they make breakfast.

Greg Mula: Do the same stuff.

Ramsey Russell: They light a kerosene lamp if the light bulb doesn’t work.

Greg Mula: Absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: And they live like they live.

Greg Mula: They live like they live.

Ramsey Russell: And somebody was saying here at camp, somebody was even saying, Greg, that the government had wanted to move them into government housing near the town. “Here’s a government house, here’s lights, here’s a toilet, here’s this, here’s that.” And they said no.

Greg Mula: They said no.

Ramsey Russell: This is our home. This is how we live. This is our home. But it’s so interesting to me. I know them to be amazing woodsmen, like they’ll go out and put the pigeons out or put the ducks out. They’ll cut twigs and prop them up out in the water.

Greg Mula: Correct.

Ramsey Russell: Like a real decoy or something. You know, they’re Indians. They’re very attuned, but they live off the land, like, we’re back there looking, and they had skinned that cow and had the cowhide hanging to make leather with. They had an axe, deer hanging.

Greg Mula: Absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: They didn’t go to town to buy a hunting knife to get that axe. Deer. They just go out to nature and hunt.

Greg Mula: Well, it’s like you said, with a cow, they butcher it and use everything but the moo. They use everything. It really is the truth.

Ramsey Russell: I didn’t tell the girls this. We were told the empanadas were doves. Chances are, since you and I shot so many parakeets yesterday, chances are those were parakeets.

Greg Mula: That’s what they probably were.

Ramsey Russell: And it’s not like they got a freezer to store it in.

Greg Mula: Well, what they did with the bread, they fried ducks and put it on that bread. That was fantastic.

Ramsey Russell: Amazing. It gets no more authentic.

Greg Mula: It was as authentic as you can have. It was fantastic.

Ramsey Russell: What next? What next you’re going to Las Flores here?

Greg Mula: Going to Las Flores here.

Ramsey Russell: Are you ain’t ready to tap out after nine days, are you?

Greg Mula: No.

Ramsey Russell: You know, we talk about Saturday night, Sunday night. We might go get us a steak to eat.

Greg Mula: Absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: We might go get a salad.

Greg Mula: I may get a salad. We’ll wait for the kids to come in. We’ll get a steak next day.

Ramsey Russell: Man, we done some eating or what?

Greg Mula: We’ll go sit in that corner. They had that rock band on the corner that was as good as anything I heard.

Ramsey Russell: Golly. Was that not crazy. When we walked to do that little foot tour?

Greg Mula: Yes.

Ramsey Russell: They were setting up. I didn’t pay attention because vendors were all over them. Holy cow. We came back, they were jamming.

Greg Mula: They were fantastic.

Ramsey Russell: So much so, it’s like, if they weren’t an obvious copy band, I just said, who are these people?

Greg Mula: I know that, absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: And I wondered. I can’t help but wonder. They were singing The Doors, they were singing REM, they were singing all these rock, American rock songs. I wonder if they knew

Greg Mula: If they knew where they met.

Ramsey Russell: You know, but they were killing it. And when we got back, we went to the tango show that night. We got back hours later, three hours later.

Greg Mula: They were still playing.

Ramsey Russell: The crowd was massive. It was unbelievable.

Greg Mula: It was fantastic.

Ramsey Russell: Well, if they’re playing, I say we just go find a table nearby and order beer.

Greg Mula: Absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: Enjoy. Thank you, Greg. I enjoyed this week. Thank you.

Greg Mula: You’re welcome.

Mazatlán vs Argentina Duck Hunting

Okay, I love Mazatlán, but this is just a different experience.

Ramsey Russell: Mrs. Nancy Mula, down here at La Paz, last time I saw you was Mazatlán.

Nancy Mula: It surely was.

Ramsey Russell: And you all had a good time there. But what about Argentina?

Nancy Mula: Okay, I love Mazatlán, but this is just a different experience. There we were in sandals and bathing suits, and here we’ve got a little jacket, closed-in shoes, jeans. Great time, great time. We’ve enjoyed it. We went, we landed in Buenos Aires, spent a couple of days there, got to see tango dancers.

Ramsey Russell: What’d you think about the tango show?

Nancy Mula: I enjoyed that. I enjoyed that. That’s just part of their culture. And they were just lovely to watch. And we just got engulfed in the experience. It was wonderful. It was wonderful.

Ramsey Russell: What about that first restaurant we went to?

Nancy Mula: Oh, my gosh. Faux gone. Okay. We walked in, and they sat us there, and we felt like we knew the waiters were awesome Ricardo, Richard, and Caroline. They introduced themselves, they were so attentive and the food was like a nine-course meal, Impeccable. We just had the best experience. They were so informative, and everything was just incredible. It was really incredible. We enjoyed it thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly.

Ramsey Russell: And we were already on a food campaign by day three when we stopped at that little wide spot in the road about halfway up here. Just a little family barbecue joint.

Nancy Mula: Excellent. We had that wonderful meat. They just put meat on the table. We had salad with it, bread. All the ladies were like, Okay, if I have one more piece of bread. But we didn’t want to eat all the bread. But it was so incredibly good. And with the meat and the salad, just fresh delicious. We loved it.

Ramsey Russell: And then we showed up, and we ate another big meal.

Nancy Mula: Okay, so at the lodge. I think I told Greg, I feel like it’s like a five-star restaurant here. These people are so nice, and they want to feed you breakfast, lunch, dinner. We can’t eat all that. And they get up in the morning, make sure you have coffee. “How about just a little toast? You don’t want eggs?” “No, no, we’re good.” And then the lunch, this is more than we’ve ever eaten. The lunches are a full meal.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, yeah.

Nancy Mula: And before the meal, you have an appetizer, and the appetizer is incredible and filling.

Ramsey Russell: What was your favorite appetizer?

Nancy Mula: Okay. I don’t know, the empanadas were great, but they had this fish cake. It was a fish cake, it was their catfish. And he made a cake out of it, then had a layer of mashed potatoes on top.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, yeah.

Nancy Mula: And that was the appetizer. We thought that was the lunch. It was incredible. That had to be one of my favorite appetizers.

Ramsey Russell: And what was your favorite dinner we had here in lapaz?

Nancy Mula: Okay, that’s hard to say because I just told him, how do you do this, everything is different and phenomenal.

Ramsey Russell: One of my favorites was the pork chop. It was a Spanish-style pork chop, to which I’m saying, I thought everything here was Spanish-style.

Nancy Mula: Yeah, it was Spanish-style because it had the pork chop layered on top of this polenta and onions underneath it, phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. Yeah, that was really good. I liked it all. They grilled different meats on the open grill. We were sitting in the big old den kitchen area.

Ramsey Russell: It was like a full-on food campaign for nine days.

Nancy Mula: And then you had desserts, besides appetizers and meals before your meal.

Ramsey Russell: What was your favorite dessert? The next one.

Nancy Mula: They were all great. Anything with dulce de leche, anything they could put it on. We were putting it on cheese, we were putting it on everything. But I think my favorite might have been that pear.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, yeah, the Malbec pear

Nancy Mula: That was cooked in the Malbec wine. Oh, my gosh. You just took your fork, and it came right off soft delicious, absolutely delicious. I think it was Malbec wine with orange juice, and then they had whipped cream on the side. It was phenomenal.

Ramsey Russell: So we spent two days eating and seeing stuff in Buenos Aires. We got here, and about midway through the week, I threatened to play some bow chicka bow bow poor music. Why was that?

Nancy Mula: I have a thing about, Okay

Ramsey Russell: It’s not just you.

Nancy Mula: I know, but I think I added to a lot of it. But every time we ate something, it was like, “Oh, my gosh.”

Ramsey Russell: All these sounds from around the table. I just wanted to record it. I’m like, you get, everybody, oh, that’s bad, oh, my gosh, it’s amazing.

Nancy Mula: That’s exactly right. We wanted to make sure they knew we enjoyed it. That’s for sure.

Ramsey Russell: Talk about some of the stuff that you all did as non-hunters that you remember. Because you all did a lot.

Nancy Mula: We did a lot. And it was nice because this is the great thing about coming here. I don’t have anything on the agenda. I don’t know what to expect. But they give you the full experience. Martha, who helped coordinate a lot of activities besides Anita, who is phenomenal, they would say, Oh, do you want to go shopping today in the little town? Do you want to go to a city two hours away and experience a pedestrian walk through? Do you want to go see the churches, the buildings? Oh, my gosh, there was a spa. We didn’t make that. We’re going to do that next time.

Ramsey Russell: Next time.

Nancy Mula: A spa with hot, hot springs.

Ramsey Russell: Hot springs, thermal hot pools.

Nancy Mula: So we did something different every day. And, oh, we did two vineyards.

Ramsey Russell: What was that like?

Nancy Mula: Okay, they were both incredible. One was a small, family-owned vineyard here in La Paz. An incredible experience with Eloisa. She was just delightful, took us on a tour of her vineyards. Then we walked through this beautiful wooded area, and then we sat down and had wine and cheese, just delightful. We spent three hours and we just enjoyed it

Ramsey Russell: And you all ate more.

Nancy Mula: Yeah, we ate. Of course. This is part of the experience, I guess. It was wonderful. Then another day, we went to a larger vineyard two hours away, outside of Paraná.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, Paraná.

Nancy Mula: And it’s family-owned too, a larger vineyard set on a hill where you could see the river. On one side, you could see Santa Fe, and on the other, you could see Paraná.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

The Fellowship of the Hunt

 It was an incredible experience. That was one of my favorite moments here I think.

Nancy Mula: And we just sat there for several hours, ate, and drank wine. It was wonderful. And just the fellowship of meeting people. We met a couple here, Matt and Nicole from New York. I am so grateful to meet them. We’ve enjoyed each other’s company and fellowship.

Ramsey Russell: It was amazing. You know, birds of a feather flock together. I’ve said it a million times. The three of us just fell in together, and it was just unbelievable.

Nancy Mula: Right. And it’s funny because I know hunters, it doesn’t matter what walk of life you’re from, you all have that common ground. But now we’re learning about the wives of hunters. That’s what we’ve enjoyed.

Ramsey Russell: Absolutely.

Nancy Mula: And so Greg and I have been married 40 years, and you’re 30, and they’ve been married seven. And so we were laughing, telling her, just go with it, baby. You can have a wonderful life, a life full of adventure and fun, and you’ll laugh. And so it’s been a lot of fun.

Ramsey Russell: On the drive up, the guys rode in one truck, the wives rode in another. Was there any quiet time?

Nancy Mula: No. In fact, the driver said, we stopped. It was a six-hour drive, so we stopped 3 hours in to have lunch. And he only spoke Spanish, so he told Martha, who interpreted for us, he said, Please have the ladies drink some wine, so they’ll sleep the rest of the way. We never stopped. Poor man. That poor man.

Ramsey Russell: What about today’s lunch? Has Greg said anything during the week about his guide or staff?

Nancy Mula: Oh, he’s talking about how wonderful, he said, this has been one of the best groups of guides, I’ve ever had. He said they were just incredible. It’s really a humbling experience to have them invite us into their home, where their family lives together. Grandmother, mother, you know, tons of family there. And they are cooking empanadas, dove empanadas. And they made this thinly fried duck and made sandwiches, homemade bread.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, homemade bread. What do you think about her oven out in the yard?

Nancy Mula: Okay. I had to take so many pictures and just see it. It was incredible.

Ramsey Russell: Like a big old anthill.

Nancy Mula: It looked like that, honestly it looked like that, I had to go look at it and take pictures and stuff, just feel it. It was incredible.

Ramsey Russell: And did you see all the firewood stacked nearby the stove wood?

Nancy Mula: I did. I did.

Ramsey Russell: Where they can, they’ll build a fire and put the coals in that oven. And then I thought it was like a propane stove, where they fried the fish, fried the duck, and it wasn’t, It was wood burning.

Nancy Mula: It was wood burning right under the pot.

Ramsey Russell: It looked like maybe somebody had a two-drawer filing cabinet.

Nancy Mula: It did.

Ramsey Russell: And they broke the back out and built a fire in it. It had a hole on top. That’s where they feed five or six families.

Nancy Mula: And they all worked together, and they were just delightful and of course, my eye went to this four year old little boy in the corner. He’d wave at us, sweet.

Ramsey Russell: That was Indio’s son.

Nancy Mula: Oh, I just fell in love with him. I just fell in love with him.

Ramsey Russell: That was Greg guide son.

Nancy Mula: Yes. Such a sweet family. It was an incredible experience. That was one of my favorite moments here I think.

Ramsey Russell: It’s kind of crazy that we started with a five-star restaurant, nine courses, exquisite wines, and went all the way down to just crawl up in a dirt-swept yard.

Nancy Mula: Absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: Where they put us on their absolute best.

Nancy Mula: And they had these beautiful little tablecloths, and they were just so sweet, and you could tell they took pride in what they did. I was very grateful for the experience that they invited us into their home. I enjoyed that thoroughly. That was one of my highlights.

Ramsey Russell: Next week, Greg is bringing his son, son-in-law, and grandson. What do you think is so valuable about bringing young people or about travel in general? What would you hope that your sons and grandkids are going to experience and see and bring home to them in America?

Nancy Mula: I think the family experience. I think my husband has always shown them the love of hunting, and they’ve grown up with that, and they love doing it together. The boys have been, my son, my two sons-in-law, and my grandson cannot wait to fly. I’m flying out, they’re flying in. They’re going to a different experience here. Similar, but different. And I’m excited for them. I wish I could be a fly on the wall. I told Greg he better take his kids.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, they’re going to have an amazing time.

Nancy Mula: They’re all so excited. That’s going to be incredible memories. And my grandson is looking forward to spending time hunting with not only his dad but his grandpa and his uncles. So it’s a special, special experience.

Ramsey Russell: Did you schedule the masseuse to come by, or did she just happen to be around and you just happened to grab her something.

Nancy Mula: No, no, this is what happened. So the masseuse came by. Martha had scheduled Greg for after his hunt, but she came by and you all were running late, and it was going to be like 45 minutes. And she, bless her heart, came, drove in, so then I said, Well, I’ll do 30 minutes. I’ll fill up her void. She was wonderful. That was unexpected, and she was absolutely wonderful.

Ramsey Russell: It’s one of the most amazing massages I’ve ever had.

Nancy Mula: It is. It really is. No, I just happened upon it. We were laughing because I said, I didn’t want her to stand there for 45 minutes. I said, No, I’ll do it. You want to do 30 minutes on me? I’ll be grateful to do that.

Ramsey Russell: What would you change here?

Nancy Mula: Oh, I can’t imagine changing anything. I can’t imagine changing anything. And the experience, you can’t describe it. Actually, I didn’t know what to expect, and it always, the few times we’ve been on your hunts, exceeded my expectations. And we’ve always created memories and just had the best time.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I think a lot of wives, even though they’re married to hunters, they don’t hunt and they’ve got this vision of going to a hunting camp, like their husbands, off of the dark wood with tar paper and rats and mice. But then you come somewhere like this.

Nancy Mula: Its incredible. It’s a win-win. He’s hunting excited, they come in for lunch or they come at dinner. We all enjoyed. The wives go off and do things.

Ramsey Russell: There were several days at lunch, the men were left alone. You all were off doing something fun.

Nancy Mula: Because they were telling us, Oh, they have a hamburger, and say, Oh, sorry, we’re going to be at the vineyard. We’re going into town 2 hours away. You all enjoy. We’ll be back tonight.

Ramsey Russell: We’ve enjoyed it, Nancy. We’ve had a great time, as always, the laughs have been unbelievable.

Nancy Mula: Right.

Ramsey Russell: Did you expect, I know you enjoyed the tango show. What did you think when that tango guy came up and hit up Greg to come up on stage? You’ve been married for 40 years. Did it even cross your mind that he might say no?

Nancy Mula: I was fearful he was going to go up there. And then these people who had paid good money were going to be very disappointed.

Ramsey Russell: What about here? When the folk dancers got up? What did you think about that performance?

Nancy Mula: Okay, that was incredible. They came dressed in gaucho outfits, I mean, beautiful. And the best part was, we had convinced Matt that he was going to have to learn the dance. And it was totally a fluke thinking, “Okay, we’re just going to scare him a little bit.” And then when the dancer said, No, we’re going to do this, and he got up there, I couldn’t stop laughing. I lost my breath laughing so much. We were all still talking about it. It was just an incredible week

Ramsey Russell: I think he’s glad he did it?

Nancy Mula: I’m glad he did. I think he is, too.

Ramsey Russell: Thank you all very much. We’ve had a great time, Nancy, and look forward to future trips with you all.

Nancy Mula: Absolutely. We’ve enjoyed it. Anytime, anytime, Ramsay.

Enjoying the Best Argentina Duck-Dove Hunt Combo

What was it about this hunt that most appealed to you?

Ramsey Russell: Mr. Matt Cooper, how the heck are you, man? You wrapped up today with a dove hunt. You were the last out of the field. It looked like you had a good time down there.

Matt Cooper: We had a great time. We had a great time.

Ramsey Russell: Of all the hunts in the world, of all the duck hunts in Argentina, of all the stuff we do at get Ducks, why this hunt? What was it about this hunt that most appealed to you?

Matt Cooper: It was a great place to come where my wife can enjoy herself and I can enjoy myself.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, but she’s not a hunter.

Matt Cooper: Absolutely not.

Ramsey Russell: No. But she had a good time?

Matt Cooper: She had a blast.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. I’m going to ask her about that. What did you enjoy most about La Paz, Argentina?  Because we shot ducks, we shot doves, we shot Pittington parakeets, you all went fishing, you shot perdees, you all did the full slam, the whole spectrum of it. What did you enjoy most?

Matt Cooper: There really isn’t any most. It was just, everything was great.

Ramsey Russell: Tell me about the duck hunt. I think it was yesterday, or even today, you said, when are you going to put me on some ducks, you said that laughingly. Tell me about your morning duck hunting experiences. What was that like?

Matt Cooper: The biggest challenge of it is not getting overwhelmed.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Matt Cooper: Yep.

Ramsey Russell: Also with dove hunting?

Matt Cooper: Absolutely.

A Unique Experience: Being Pulled by a Horse in a Boat

Ramsey Russell: Tell me about this morning, they pulled you across. I knew where you went, when you said you were in the boat, I knew which hole you went to because it’s about a mile across there. Last year, we were saddling up horses and riding that, and this year they got smart. They said, I can pull two or three people, if I need to, in a boat with one horse. Because you know, you were supposed to ride a horse this morning, and they changed plans. They said, “No, no, no, jump here and go here,” because they got out in the dark this morning, lord only knows what time they got out there, Matt, they got out there this morning and couldn’t find the horses. The horses had walked off in the pasture somewhere, and they couldn’t call them up. So I said, well, Matt’s going in the boat, because I already had this horse saddled up. But what was it like, just Describe it? It’s getting daylight, you’re hunting and I know it was inches-deep water, maybe a quarter acre, maybe smaller. What was it like when those ducks started coming in?

Matt Cooper: It’s just amazing. It really is. There are ducks coming from every direction. They’re just landing in the decoys.

Ramsey Russell: By morning 03:00, are you not so overwhelmed?

Matt Cooper: Shots are getting a little bit better by the third day.

Ramsey Russell: I don’t care who you are. You’re always better on the last hunt than you were on the first, always. You get dialed in.

Matt Cooper: I can see that. It’s really easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of birds.

Ramsey Russell: We were driving out Tuesday morning, and we were going pigeon hunting, and you asked the question honestly enough. You said, are these like feral pigeons like we have back home? I said, oh no, these are wild Picosura and Spot-winged pigeons. You had shot pigeons at home, like a lot of people like myself, shooting barnyard pigeons. How did it compare?

Matt Cooper: It was more like duck hunting than pigeon hunting.

Ramsey Russell: Duck hunting with hiking boots on.

Matt Cooper: Yep, yep. We just sat in the field on the hedgerow and had decoys out there. They just fluttered in, hovering over the decoys, and you pick your shots.

Ramsey Russell: And there was a lot to choose from.

Matt Cooper: Absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: What was yesterday, its yesterday, No yesterday you all went fishing. The day before, you all went dove hunting. And I know where you went, you went to where we did today. Today, they were a little slow. Not when you all went the first time. Describe what you all saw when the sky got full of doves?

Matt Cooper: After that first shot, it was amazing, it was just, nothing but birds in the air.

Ramsey Russell: Could have been thousands, could have been millions.

Matt Cooper: I couldn’t put a number on it. I have no idea.

Ramsey Russell: Clouds of them.

Matt Cooper: I have no idea.

Ramsey Russell: From left to right, as far as you can go, just clouds of doves.

Matt Cooper: You couldn’t see the horizon.

Ramsey Russell: How do you pick one like that?

Matt Cooper: It’s difficult.

Ramsey Russell: You know, when I start seeing flocks come in, all I can do is look at the flock, kind of look at it all as one unit, then pick one and focus on him. If I get him, shoot for another one. That’s all I can do. I’ve got to focus on one and then worry about the second shot. That’s all I know to do when it’s that much stuff coming at you.

Matt Cooper: Yeah, that’s about all you can do.

Ramsey Russell: Today you loaded up on the parakeets.

Matt Cooper: Yeah, that was great. They’re a blast.

Ramsey Russell: Somewhere, somebody is going, I can’t believe they shot my parakeet or why would somebody shoot that. But it’s a pest of epic proportions. You remember we were driving up here, all those nests? There were places we went through, and you’d see hundreds of those nests, hundreds of them.

Matt Cooper: It’s amazing how many there are. I actually questioned that coming down here. I’m like a parakeet, why would I want to shoot parakeets. But, you know, Martha was explaining, they are literally a plague here.

Ramsey Russell: I’m not going to say this to the ladies, they can listen to the podcast and hear it. But today when we went out and ate with the gauchos, they cooked those empanadas and said they were dove. Sure enough, it could have been dove. But I know for a fact they eat the parakeets because the parakeets are carnivorous. I have eaten them, and they taste like dove. Chances are, since Greg and I went and shot a pile of them yesterday, chances are those were doves and parakeets mixed in. And I’m not about to tell the ladies that.

Matt Cooper: I believe it. Eduardo wanted me to shoot the parakeets.

Ramsey Russell: What was he like as a guy?

Matt Cooper: Oh, he was great.

Ramsey Russell: Did he speak any English?

Matt Cooper: Not a word.

Ramsey Russell: Did he need to?

Matt Cooper: No, absolutely not

Ramsey Russell: You all sit down and get along, get your shells right, get the ducks.

Matt Cooper: He knew everything we needed to do.

Ramsey Russell: You duck hunting, goose hunting back home?

Matt Cooper: Yep.

Ramsey Russell: How many decoys do you put out?

Matt Cooper: Oh, I usually put out six or eight.

Ramsey Russell: Okay, small spread.

Matt Cooper: Yep.

Ramsey Russell: So you weren’t put off by that little old bitty sack. They had a croaker sack full of those. What do you think of their decoys?

Matt Cooper: They’re old.

Ramsey Russell: Might as well use painted pop bottles.

Matt Cooper: Yeah, exactly. Get old bleach bottles.

Ramsey Russell: But then you start shooting ducks.

Matt Cooper: It doesn’t matter.

Ramsey Russell: More and more decoys sitting out there.

Matt Cooper: Absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: You know, a lot of people say you got to pick those ducks up off the water or it’ll scare the ducks coming in. I’m like, no, those are amazing decoys.

Matt Cooper: It doesn’t matter down here.

Ramsey Russell: They’re amazing decoys.

Matt Cooper: Absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: At least they have been down here. What about the food? Did you get enough to eat?

Matt Cooper: Yeah, I think it could have been a little bit more, but, you know, servings were a little small.

Ramsey Russell: You were sitting on my end of the table. I can’t even remember what we were eating, and everybody was just, I was full up to my gills, and they came back by and said, you want more, like, yeah. And you said, “I’m done. I’m done.” And I looked down, and you were eating something else too. Did they feed you enough around here?

Matt Cooper: It’s absolutely amazing.

Ramsey Russell: Did you notice that outside of the tango show where we ate that big old sirloin, every other cut of meat we ate was not something you’d normally eat back home?

Matt Cooper: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: But we ate a lot of different cuts of beef.

Matt Cooper: Yeah, it was great. It was a great experience.

Ramsey Russell: I know it’s your first time to Argentina. Had you ever eaten chimichurri sauce before?

Matt Cooper: I have, yeah, in the US.

Ramsey Russell: Okay. I don’t know down here, but I want to make a good one. I want to make one like fatty makes here.

Matt Cooper: Yeah, that’s it. That’s amazing.

Ramsey Russell: Have you got a favorite meal that you ate here?

Matt Cooper: Oh, Lord, no.

Ramsey Russell: No, they’re all good. A favorite dessert?

Matt Cooper: They’re great. There is no favorite. There’s no favorite hunt. There’s no favorite meal. It was all excellent.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Matt Cooper: Yeah, absolutely.

Ramsey Russell: No.

Matt Cooper: Nope.

Ramsey Russell: Your wife showed up. She didn’t have her bags. She didn’t seem put off in the least.

Matt Cooper: She was a little frazzled at first, but we worked through it, and she got ahold of Martha. She was calm after talking with her, and everything worked out good.

Ramsey Russell: You grew up outside of New York City. You’re not far from New York City.

Matt Cooper: Correct.

Ramsey Russell: And all those folks down south, it’s all the same. But how would Buenos Aires compare to New York City? Because it’s a big gritty city.

Matt Cooper: It is, it is.

Ramsey Russell: And I’ve never been to New York City.

Matt Cooper: People are very friendly in Buenos Aires. I didn’t have any concerns. I wasn’t worried about anything.

Ramsey Russell: And as compared to New York City, you would have been?

Matt Cooper: I’m a little nervous there.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Matt Cooper: When I go, I don’t go very often.

Ramsey Russell: New York City gets some bad press.

Matt Cooper: Yeah, it does.

Ramsey Russell: And Buenos Aires does not.

Matt Cooper: Nope.

Ramsey Russell: When I’m in a big city, I’ve got eyes in the back of my head. I’m not going to let a stranger get within my space.

Matt Cooper: Yep.

Ramsey Russell: You know what I’m saying? I’ll never forget, Greg and I were talking about that band that was playing. You know, we went through Recoleta Cemetery. We went and did something. And what do you think about that, by the way, you know, because the number one tourist attraction in the city of Buenos Aires is a cemetery. I mean, that kind of put me off the first time I showed up. But I started walking through and looking at this stuff, and I’m like, oh, my gosh. Who was this guy? He’s got a headstone the size of a 2,500-square-foot home. Who were these people? Wasn’t that kind of cool?

Matt Cooper: That was amazing. What was amazing was the architect on some of those buildings. You can only imagine how much effort they put into doing those sculptures and the craftsmanship.

Ramsey Russell: And we were heading back out to Martha was waiting to take us over to somewhere to go see something over in Santamo, and I heard this music. The Doors playing. I gravitated to the street corner, and holy cow, where this three-piece band jamming, and I stayed for about three or four songs, and, oh, my God, they’re gone. I better go catch up. And I got to the truck, and Mark’s like, where is everybody? I’m like, I know where they are. I walked another block down, and there you all were jamming out too.

Matt Cooper: Oh, that was great.

Ramsey Russell: Stayed there all night.

Matt Cooper: Absolutely. I’d pull up a chair and watch them all night long.

Ramsey Russell: Now, be serious. What’d you think about the tango show?

Matt Cooper: It was great.

Ramsey Russell: It really was.

Matt Cooper: That was the first time I ever did it, and it was amazing.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. It’s like, ain’t something I got to go see every day. It’s not like I go see musical performances like the Nutcracker or something back home, but it is Argentina. It was an amazing meal. It was a great time with the ladies. And those were some of the top dancers on Earth doing that tango show.

Matt Cooper: I believe it.

Ramsey Russell: And then that guy came out swinging those freaking bondaleras. Man, what if one of those things had come loose and hit somebody in the crowd? That’s why I put you in the front seat, man. I know you were tough. You could take it. Do you have any problem understanding any of our southern accents?

Matt Cooper: Not at all.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Matt Cooper: Everybody thinks I’m from the South.

Ramsey Russell: They do not think you’re from the South.

Matt Cooper: From up north, like I’m from the South.

Ramsey Russell: Nobody from Mississippi listening said you think you’re from the South.

Matt Cooper: I’m sure, man.

Ramsey Russell: I’ve enjoyed the hell out of it. I really have, I have had so much fun hanging out and hunting with you all every morning. It’s been super. You all went fishing yesterday. Tell me about the field lunch, because I know that’s what everybody that goes fishing talks about. How would you rate that fish?

Matt Cooper: Oh, my gosh. 20 out of 10.

Ramsey Russell: Isn’t it something how, he probably live, like, the people we ate with today, you know, they cook over open fire.

Matt Cooper: Everything, absolutely everything’s cooked over an open fire.

Ramsey Russell: We even had pizza last night cooked over open fire. That was good.

Matt Cooper: Yep.

Ramsey Russell: At least everybody seemed full when they got up from the table.

Matt Cooper: Yep.

The Best Duck Hunt Without Ever Firing a Shot

Ramsey Russell: I couldn’t eat another piece. Anyway, thank you all very much. I have enjoyed it beyond measure. You all have been an amazing team to hunt with. What would you tell anybody listening about coming down here?

Matt Cooper: If you want a good cultural experience with an amazing shoot, this is the place to go.

Ramsey Russell: You can bring your wife, and you’ll have a good time.

Matt Cooper: Absolutely, she will have a blast. My wife had the best time of her life. I do believe that.

Ramsey Russell: And she never fired a shot.

Matt Cooper: She’d never. Yeah, absolutely, they went to town, they laughed, they just had a great time.

Ramsey Russell: They really did. Thank you, Matt.

Matt Cooper: Thank you, Ramsey.

Ramsey Russell: Mrs. Nicole Cooper down in Argentina with her husband, Matt. Nicole, Here’s how I’m going to start this off. I got this question for you, because you told it the other night at dinner, but I got a follow-up question to what you told me. Matt put this on your radar, listening to Duck Season Somewhere podcast about a hosted hunt. And so I’m just wondering, I’ve been curious all weekend. Did he, like, “Look, babe, I want you to hear this. Here’s a hunt I really want to do.” Or was it more like nonchalant, just casually putting it on, hoping you’d hear it?

Nicole Cooper: No, Matt and I have completely different ideas of vacations. I’m a resort, lay by the pool, let’s hang out and have some drinks, let’s do some tourist stuff. He’s want to hunt again.

Ramsey Russell: Adventure.

Nicole Cooper: Yeah, he’s like, I can’t lay still for too long. I want to do something. I want to get immersed in the culture. So, he said to me, I just want you to listen to this and be open-minded. And he played it one day when we were in the car, and I couldn’t understand what anybody was saying, between the southern accent, I was lost. And he played it again, and I listened, and I was like, you know what, I might as well try it. I’m not going to know unless I try.

Ramsey Russell: I knew within an hour of meeting you that you were an adventurer, that you were a roll-with-the-punches kind of girl, and that you were an experienced collector. I certainly knew by breakfast the next morning what kind of person you were, because now, look, airlines ain’t perfect, and you all showed up, and your bags didn’t.

Nicole Cooper: True.

Ramsey Russell: And you just rolled with it.

Nicole Cooper: What else are you going to do?

Ramsey Russell: You didn’t flinch, you didn’t pout. And you know what, I almost told you this at dinner. If I did and we went to, we’re going to talk about this crazy dinner, this nice dinner we went to, had you showed up and not said, my bags got lost, I wouldn’t have known it. I don’t know, I didn’t hatred, I mean, people dress differently. I dress in the same thing, worn-out khakis, hopefully without bloodstains, and green shirts, you know, that’s what I wear, so I wouldn’t have known. But you just showed up and owned it.

Nicole Cooper: Yeah, you know, that web call that prepared us for the trip prior to leaving, you said, “You can wear the same shirt every night, nobody’s going to judge you.” And I was never that type of person, but being with Matt and being a little more surrounded by, I don’t want to say his type of people, but duck hunters in general just seem to be genuinely like, “This is who we are. This is what it is.” And so he’s really, over the past ten years, he’s really pushed me outside of my shell to make me just more comfortable in any situation.

Ramsey Russell: You didn’t grow up in a hunting family.

Nicole Cooper: I did not.

Ramsey Russell: But here you are.

Nicole Cooper: My father deer hunted but only until I was about nine. Then his best friend was killed, and he stopped hunting. But I never grew up on venison, nothing

Ramsey Russell: And one of you all first big prior adventures, you all went with acute angling, my buddy Brent Morland. You all went down to the Amazon peacock bass fishing. Were you a fisherman before that?

Nicole Cooper: Not at all.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Nicole Cooper: Not at all. Five years prior, I took fly fishing lessons up at Roscoe, New York, to surprise Matt with a trip to Colorado for our anniversary. That was my very first time. I took a one-hour lesson, booked the trip, and my very first fish was out on the Yampa. I just loved seeing him enjoy it. And I always get a guide because I want a babysitter. He can go do his thing, but I don’t want him worrying about me. I need a babysitter.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Nicole Cooper: So we got a guide, and then from there we did Montana with Montana Angler. Then we went to one of the outdoor shows, and I walked around a corner and said, Oh, that’s a pretty fish and he says, that’s a peacock bass. It’s on my bucket list. I said, let’s book it. He goes, that’s not a good idea. And between Paul and him, they just had us sold. I left a deposit, and we were there ten weeks ago.

Ramsey Russell: But it was an amazing event, wasn’t it? You all enjoyed it, I could tell you enjoyed it.

Nicole Cooper: Once I left there, I realized, okay, let’s do this. Then I was able to get excited for Argentina. This has been a totally different experience than the Amazon, but amazing.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

What’s Next on the Hunting Bucket List?

I’m already ready to go home and start looking at the website to see what else we can do.

Nicole Cooper: I’m already ready to go home and start looking at the website to see what else we can do.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Nicole Cooper: I am. I said that to him the other night.

Ramsey Russell: You all went fishing while you were here. You so liked that peacock bass fishing experience so much that you all went out on the river to catch golden dorado and whatever else there is. Talk about yesterday, you and Matt on the river.

Nicole Cooper: Yesterday was fantastic. It was a nice break from the hunt. Although I have to say, I don’t really feel like this trip was so focused on the hunt that it was just a hunting trip. We’ve had an amazing blend of absolutely everything.

Ramsey Russell: He’s not less you want it to be.

Nicole Cooper: Exactly. He’s come home smiling ear to ear every single day, having a great time. But yesterday, I was like, You know what, I don’t want you missing out on a hunt. Are you okay going fishing? And he goes, If that’s what you want to do, let’s go.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Nicole Cooper: And from start to finish, everything was fantastic. The guide was amazing. We caught golden dorado, multiple types of catfish, and had an amazing shore lunch.

Ramsey Russell: Talk about the shore lunch. Everybody does, its awesome.

Nicole Cooper: I eat with my head, so I’m not eating anything I catch. But I couldn’t not eat this. It was prepared so well. I just figured, you know what? I’m here. Might as well try it. I’m never going to know unless I try.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Nicole Cooper: Which is exactly how I ended up in the Amazon, how I ended up here, and how I hope to end up at multiple other vacation spots. But yesterday was amazing. I’ve never been in a culture that is so polite, welcoming, and humbling. Even in the city, even in BA, Nobody was banging into you, everybody was just so polite and nice here.

Ramsey Russell: Have you ever been to New York City?

Nicole Cooper: Yeah, I live an hour and a half outside of New York City.

Ramsey Russell: What’s it like compared to Buenos Aires?

Nicole Cooper: I don’t go. I don’t like it. It’s dirty, it smells, the people are rude, and everybody’s on their phone walking into you. It’s just not my thing. I’m a country girl. I didn’t get that at all in BA, and I said that multiple times. I said, you know, this is a big city and he’s like, yeah, I know. I said, this is not New York and he’s like, thank god.

Ramsey Russell: We spent two nights in Buenos Aires on this couple’s trip. Talk about your Buenos Aires experience. We did a little bit of everything.

Nicole Cooper: We did everything from seeing the basilica and that breath-taking cemetery to a tango show. And an amazing nine-course meal. We did it all, and only in two days. Martha said, “You guys really didn’t see a lot of BA.” And I said, “I feel like I’ve seen plenty.”

Ramsey Russell: You saw a lot of it.

Nicole Cooper: Exactly. It was just enough city adventure and touristy stuff. Then coming to La Paz, it was like, okay, now we’re in the country, and here’s another side of the culture. So you got both sides, which was amazing.

Ramsey Russell: Contrast, contrast. Going to Fogon Asado, that first nine-course meal, all the wine. What you liked about it, what it was like, contrast it with today’s lunch.

Nicole Cooper: I mean, Fogon was like, Michelin-level type restaurant. It was elegant. You felt like you were the only one sitting there, and they were preparing the meals just for you. The food was amazing.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, gosh.

Nicole Cooper: But I don’t feel like today was much different. Today, these people opened their hearts. I’m going to get emotional.

Ramsey Russell: They did, they did.

Nicole Cooper: They opened their home and their hearts.

Ramsey Russell: They swept their dirt yard. You could see the sweep marks in the dirt. I don’t know where they got that beautiful tablecloth. Two of them, laid them out on the wooden table that I see flapping under laundry when I drive by. She got up this morning and baked enough bread to feed the multitude.

Nicole Cooper: And it was amazing. They did it with their hearts. They opened their home to us, welcomed us. Everything was amazing. The food was just as good. They did it with their heart.

Ramsey Russell: Totally different spin. You know, the grandmother, great-grandmother, I don’t know. I lose track of the generations there. But she’s 76, and she’s got five sons and five daughters. They’ve been offered to come into town and accept government housing with modern amenities, and they’re like, No, this is us, this is our home.

Nicole Cooper: And they’re happy.

Ramsey Russell: They are happy beyond. It’s unbelievable.

Nicole Cooper: It humbles you, too.

Ramsey Russell: And you know what got me is, I was sitting there eating dinner and eating that great lunch, just looking around. In some ways, it’s way different than how I live or how anybody listening lives. But in other ways, it’s like every little tree had something hanging on it, like an empty plastic bottle with the lid cut off and a little plant or vine growing. These little flowers everywhere. Very simple. But all of it took a lot of care.

Nicole Cooper: Yes.

Ramsey Russell: You know what I’m saying? Everything there takes care. And you’re walking around, and you got to be careful not to trip over a little chick with its mama. The cats, the dogs, the pigs, the chickens, the goats, the deer, the cow, everybody gets along.

Nicole Cooper: Like you said, it all takes a lot of care. But it also shows that whether they have a ton of stuff or absolutely nothing, they have pride.

Ramsey Russell: Oh yeah, they do. They’ve got dignity.

Nicole Cooper: Exactly. And that’s huge. That speaks volumes.

Ramsey Russell: What did the ladies do? Because you all didn’t hunt, even on the pigeon hunt where the ladies usually come out and join us in the field for dinner. We had a barbecue at the house because we were done early. What did you enjoy as a non-hunter on this couples trip?

Nicole Cooper: What didn’t we do? We saw wineries, went shopping in the little town, visited churches, went to the lighthouse and took pictures. We sat around one morning and did absolutely nothing but talked and got to know each other over 16 cups of coffee and then later, it turned to wine, and we just had a great time being ourselves.

Ramsey Russell: That’s what you all were doing when we came back from Dartmouth today. You all were sitting around drinking. I heard you say you’ve modified your grocery list. Apparently, you’ve got a grocery list on your app. What have you added from Argentina to your grocery list?

Nicole Cooper: Well, I’m dreading going home, knowing the first thing I have to do is go food shopping. So I need milk, bananas, and Bombay gin because I’ve never had a gin and tonic before, and their gin and tonics down here are amazing.

Ramsey Russell: They are really good.

Nicole Cooper: They are really good.

Amazing Duck Cuisine

Ramsey Russell: Believe me, Bombay gin is on my thing to go pick up at the store. I’ve enjoyed it down here. What was your favourite meals? They stuffed us. Have you all been getting up and eating breakfast because the guys have been getting up, drinking coffee. We just skipped it, two meals a day back home, and I cannot eat three meals like this.

Nicole Cooper: We’ve been having a cup of coffee with a piece of toast and homemade marmalade that they have done here. But we’ve skipped breakfast, we just can’t. I can’t tell you the food has been amazing from the catfish with potatoes on top to the mouth-watering pears, everything’s been fantastic.

Ramsey Russell: What about the thing you all ate last night?

Nicole Cooper: What did I have last night?

Ramsey Russell: It was like the little meringue puffs with the caramel in between it. Some ice cream with something crunchy on it.

Nicole Cooper: Yep. It was a meringue with dulce de leche in between and dulce de leche ice cream. And it was so flavorful.

Ramsey Russell: Have you noticed we’ve eaten a lot of meat?

Nicole Cooper: More than I eat at home.

Ramsey Russell: We have eaten a lot of meat. We ate it at Fagan. We ate it at those Italian restaurants, sotto voce, where we’ve got carpaccio. We’ve eaten it up at the tango show. The tango show, that big thick succulent, delicious steak was a sirloin the size of a Rubik’s cube, cooked to perfection. We’ve eaten meat, but do you notice, outside of sirloinous, and we haven’t eaten any of the usual cuts of steak from back home?

Nicole Cooper: No. And I was a little bit nervous about that, because again, on that web call, prior to getting ready to come here, you said you’re going to eat so much beef that when you get home, you’re only going to want chicken. And I got to tell you. Yeah, I got to tell you, every cut has been different, but it’s been unbelievable. Has been fantastic.

Ramsey Russell: Speaking of which, Nicole, Is there something you tried here that you wouldn’t have eaten at home, you go, oh, my gosh, this is good.

Nicole Cooper: 50% of the meals.

Ramsey Russell: Did you try the blood sausage.

Nicole Cooper: I did not, that I didn’t try, but I wouldn’t have eaten golden Dorado. We had that yesterday on the shore. I wouldn’t have eaten fried catfish. We had that yesterday on the shore. I wouldn’t have done any of the stuff at full gone, that pituitary gland. I wouldn’t have done any of that. It was amazing.

Ramsey Russell: How did today’s duck Milanesa compare to Matt’s duck?

Nicole Cooper: Do I have to say that out loud, because this need to be recorded? I took a bite of the dove empanada and thought it was duck. I said, this is better than your duck, and then he said, No, it’s dove. And I go, okay, well, you don’t cook dove at home. And then I had the duck sandwich, and I go, oh, this is better than your dove.

Ramsey Russell: It’s amazing, isn’t it?

Nicole Cooper: And he’s a good cook, but it was amazing. I don’t know if it’s the heart that they cook, or if its spices or what, but everything has been amazing, even stuff I don’t usually like.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Any favorite memory? Take away favorite memory. One thing you’re going to be flying home thinking about, like, golly.

Nicole Cooper: The teamwork. From the kitchen to the cleaning to your crew, I haven’t had to plan or think about anything.

Ramsey Russell: That’s what we do.

Nicole Cooper: I’ve had every single experience I wanted, from culture to food to his hunting to my fishing and the city, and I didn’t have to think about a thing.

Ramsey Russell: Just show up.

Nicole Cooper: That’s all I had to do.

Ramsey Russell: With or without your clothes. Just show up.

Nicole Cooper: : That’s all I had to do was show up, and everything was taken care of and it was amazing.

Ramsey Russell: Thank you, Nicole. Nate and I have said this was such a fun week. It feels like a month ago that we all met in Buenos Aires because we’ve done so much. We have covered a lot of ground in eight days.

Nicole Cooper: We sure have.

Creating Shared Memories on the Hunt

 The stories have been endless. The laughs are continual. 

Ramsey Russell: And we still got barbecue ribs to eat tonight. We’re going to hit that barbecue joint on the way back. Better eat it, because the airport ain’t going to have nothing good to eat, I’m going to tell you. But anyway, it’s been a lot of fun getting to know you all. I have so enjoyed hunting and being around camp with you all, too. The stories have been endless. The laughs are continual. And, you know, I got to tell this last story about experiences. So somehow or other, because the ladies are here, we ordered some folk dancers, just some local music teachers or something. They came in with their traditional garb, and they were going to do a dance. And Matt, you know, we were like, “Oh, man.” We started running a joke like, “Matt, we got you a dance lesson scheduled,” and you jumped right on board with it, not knowing the joke would backfire.

Nicole Cooper: It sure did. But you know what?

Ramsey Russell: I really didn’t expect either one of you all to get up there and do dance lessons. Martha poked the bear with that.

Nicole Cooper: She did. But you know what? We got a fantastic education about their traditional dance. We had a fantastic time doing it, laughed more than we could, and we learned to dance. It was fun, something that was completely unexpected. I’m looking forward to a lot more experiences with you guys.

Ramsey Russell: Thank you, Nicole.

Nicole Cooper: Thank you.

Head Chef at Duck Camp

Ramsey Russell: Chef Fede Garcia, who I’ve known for, gosh, Fede, I bet, I’ve known you for ten years as Martha’s husband. But now you’re our chef down here at La Paz. How you doing?

Fede Garcia: I’m fine. How are you?

Ramsey Russell: Well, we’ve got it. We’re a month into the season. We’ve got two more months to go. We’re just getting started. Here’s what I want to start off talking to you about. You are the chef, but you’re not just cooking. You’ve always had an interest in cooking. Martha has always said, and I mean, she’s always said she cannot cook. I don’t know that she can boil water. But you are the cook at home, and you’ve got formal training, I found out. You’ve been to culinary arts school?

Fede Garcia: Well, yeah. I mean, at the beginning, my idea was to study to be a chef, and my father said, “Hmm, I don’t think so.” I’m talking about, 26 years ago, that was really new.

Ramsey Russell: So when you were young, 26 years ago, you wanted to be a chef?

Fede Garcia: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Your dad said no, don’t do that

Fede Garcia: Yeah, he said maybe another career. So I went to military school.

Ramsey Russell: When I met you, you were the Argentine equivalent of Secret Service.

Fede Garcia: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: You worked on the president’s security detail. What was that like?

Fede Garcia: That was great. I’ve been there for five years. Working close to the president was a great experience.

Ramsey Russell: What exactly would you do? Like, if she was giving a speech, were you one of the people whispering in their sleeves nearby?

Greg Mula: No.

Ramsey Russell: Making sure nobody got her?

Fede Garcia: I used to have different posts inside the Pink House, which is like White House. And we had soldiers watching different places for two to three hours, and then they moved to different places. We also escorted the president inside the pink house. Everything inside the Pink House was done by the army.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Fede Garcia: Outside the Pink House, there were policemen, but inside, it was the army.

Ramsey Russell: You said something the other day. We were talking out here having a cup of mate, and one of the clients asked you about your military experience. You said, yeah, I was there for 15 or 20 years, a long time. And you said you learned a lot. What did you learn?

Fede Garcia: I’ve been there for 18 years.

Ramsey Russell: 18 years?

Fede Garcia: Yeah. And I learned respect for people, work hard, wake up early, and stay with my clothes clean. And then, of course,

Ramsey Russell: A lot of professional habits.

Fede Garcia: Yeah, I’ve been in the cavalry, and being a platoon commander of armor.

Ramsey Russell: You must have learned a lot about people.

Fede Garcia: Yeah, of course.

Ramsey Russell: Just about the human nature of people, how to get along with people, and what people want. You must be able to read people. Do you feel like you can read people? If there’s a client in camp, do you feel like you can kind of read him and say he wants something different, or he needs something different, or he needs my attention?

Fede Garcia: Yeah, of course.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Fede Garcia: I find different kinds of people when they come. You know, it’s different when it’s a couple’s week or a group of friends, or if they are young.

Ramsey Russell: We’ve really gotten to know each other, Fede, because for ten years, you have at times been the host of some of our hunts, like at Rio Salado, formerly, or at La Paz, taking care of clients. And I’ve noticed that you run things with kind of that military precision. When we were in the swamp at Rio Salado, you knew who was supposed to be in the truck, what guns were supposed to be where, what hunters were supposed to be where. And you weren’t just letting it go, buddy. You were standing there with your clipboard, making sure that everything went in order, and that really. So that military experience really helped you to make the organization of these hunts successful.

Fede Garcia: You’re right. My work was to try to keep control of any situation. Ammunition, weapons, helmets, magazines, trucks.

Ramsey Russell: All the details. Now we’re getting down to it. So your dad says, No, don’t go to chef school. You joined the military. You’ve been there for 18 years. When did culinary art school come about?

Fede Garcia: When I was living in Cordoba.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Fede Garcia: And I was married. I got divorced, and my ex-wife went to the psychologist, and I went to culinary art school. Yeah, you’re right. So it was kind of like therapy for me.

Ramsey Russell: It was therapy. You enjoyed cooking. You wanted to be a chef.

Fede Garcia: Yeah, I used to cook every day. I mean, every night for sure, and on the weekend, every meal. But during the week, I prepared every dinner.

Ramsey Russell: And with some of the organizational changes we’ve had after 15 years here at La Paz, we’re in a new place. We needed a new cook, and you fell right into it. It’s like a dream come true, manifest destiny

Fede Garcia: It’s like my own restaurant, you know? It’s great.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, it is great. I can tell you’re very happy, and you still use that same organizational detail. And you’ve got a sous chef also named Fede that we know from Rio Salado. You’ve got some different people working for you, and you keep everything running with military precision.

Fede Garcia: It’s the same.

Ramsey Russell: It’s the same, yeah.

Fede Garcia: I changed ammunition for onions.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, ammunition for onions. I like that. Where did you come up with your menu for La Paz? Like, how did you decide for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, here’s what I am going to do.

Fede Garcia: To complete the best ones.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Like, how did I decide this season? Here’s what I’m going to serve clients to eat.

Fede Garcia: I trained to cook traditional food, our traditional food, like barbecue on the grill.

Ramsey Russell: That’s kind of your wheelhouse.

Fede Garcia: Yeah, Basilo. Most of the meals I cook, I cook on the grill.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Fede Garcia: Because that is our tradition.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Fede Garcia: I grew up watching my grandfather cook on the grill, and then my father.

Ramsey Russell: That’s who influenced you to cook. Well, I’ve noticed that you’ve got a complete kitchen in the back, and you cook a few things on the stove or in the oven, but mostly you like to cook with fire. You cook pizza over live coals. You cook your meats over live coals. You fry empanadas, get the grease hot over hot coals. That’s very traditional, like yesterday, some of the guests were talking about how we went off and had kind of the gaucho experience out in the country. All of those people cooked over fire. They cooked all their meals over fire.

Fede Garcia: It’s our tradition.

Ramsey Russell: That’s what you do.

Cooking with Fire

I also noticed you take an immense amount of pride, and it’s a very traditional dish, in what you all call asado. Short ribs, sausage, that’s it.

Fede Garcia: I love the fire, not just for cooking. I love to watch the fire. But this is a tradition in my country, cooking with fire.

Ramsey Russell: What is the one meal that you cook per week that you are most proud of? If you had a signature dish, what would that dish be each week?

Fede Garcia: Well, maybe the lamb.

Ramsey Russell: The lamb?

Fede Garcia: Yeah, that’s on the grill. And the other one, which is really good, is the pork chop.

Ramsey Russell: The pork chop. Oh, Spanish pork chop. Man, I love that.

Fede Garcia: That is amazing.

Ramsey Russell: That is probably my favorite meal of the week. I don’t know why. It’s kind of Southern. And I’ll tell anybody listening, it’s a pork chop that you cook, and then you sauté onions and peppers. And then what? After I sauté my onions and peppers, you get tomato paste, tomato sauce, garlic, seasonings, a little green peas.

Fede Garcia: Fry it.

Ramsey Russell:  But you put the pork chops back in the sauce and let it cook down.

Fede Garcia: First, there’s a cornmeal bed.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, polenta.

Fede Garcia: Yeah, polenta.

Ramsey Russell: And then top it with a fried egg. That is my kind of meal right there, Fede. I also noticed you take an immense amount of pride, and it’s a very traditional dish, in what you all call asado. Short ribs, sausage, that’s it.

Fede Garcia: Basilio, sometimes.

Ramsey Russell: Basilio.

Fede Garcia: Blood sausage.

Ramsey Russell: Blood sausage, sometimes. Do you find that a lot of American clients don’t like blood sausage?

Fede Garcia: Sometimes.

Ramsey Russell: I said for years, I said, It’s an acquired taste, and after ten years, I didn’t acquire it. Then one day I tried it, and now I like it. I don’t dislike it. I love it. I eat blood sausage here. I eat blood sausage at a couple of the restaurants in town and some in Buenos Aires. When I see good blood sausage, I try it. We eat blood boudin back home in South Louisiana. It’s good.

Fede Garcia: We used to eat blood sausage every Sunday, you know, with the ribs and sausage.

Ramsey Russell: You know, what’s so interesting to me is we’re in the Southern Hemisphere, so it’s wintertime here, which is summertime in Mississippi. It’s wintertime down here, and at Christmas, when I’m talking to all my friends from Argentina, you all are on the back patios wearing flip-flops and shorts and tank tops because it’s hotter than blazes, and it looks like you’re having a 4th of July dinner. What is you all Christmas dinner? What do you usually serve for Christmas dinner?

Fede Garcia: Sometimes barbecue.

Ramsey Russell: Barbecue, Asado?

Fede Garcia: We used to eat eggs, like the other day, with something inside.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Fede Garcia: I don’t know how to say it.

Ramsey Russell: Like a frittata.

Fede Garcia: Yeah. Because the weather is hot, so we try to eat fresh food. Salad, different kinds of salad, and chicken.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Fede Garcia: Pork.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, just light summer food.

Fede Garcia: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, traditional barbecue. You’ve got a son who’s now a grown man. He grew up in the kitchen. You watched your granddaddy, you watched your daddy, your son has watched you, and now Nacho is in culinary art school.

Fede Garcia: Yeah, he’s a chef.

Ramsey Russell: He’s a chef now?

Fede Garcia: He’s working in a company that makes different gastronomic events.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Fede Garcia: And also, he’s studying at the college.

Ramsey Russell: Freddie, when we’re down here, I’ve been here for two weeks this year, and we skipped breakfast this week. The men that got up to go hunting, we all just said, No, we want a cup of coffee. We’ve eaten so much. For lunch, you serve what we would call a big dinner, like pork chops or steak, and then for supper, another big meal. Is that how you all eat here in Argentina?

Fede Garcia: No.

Ramsey Russell: No, You all eat regular food like we do back home?

Fede Garcia: We don’t usually have a big dish except on weekends. Sometimes Friday night, Saturday night, or Sunday lunch. But during the week, maybe the lunch is big, but dinner is really light, just a salad.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Fede Garcia: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: So you feed Americans more heavily than you normally eat? We’re eating more heavily. Why do you feel like food is such an important part of a hunt like this? Every hunter that’s been on here so far has talked about the meals. They talked about the hunts, the winery, the things they did, but it all centered around the meals.

Fede Garcia: I mean, food is a really important thing in our life. People enjoy sitting at the table talking about ducks. And they enjoy the meal while they are talking about hunting.

Duck Hunts or Experiences?

The difference between simply hunting and creating lasting memories.

Ramsey Russell: See, you nailed it. It’s funny because, like Greg and I were talking yesterday, I sell duck hunts, but I don’t, I sell experiences. And if trigger-pulling is all someone wants, if a guy wants to come down to Argentina just to pull the trigger and eat, boom, we got it. But a lot of people want to do more. And no matter where you go on earth, whichever country, whichever group of men you’re sitting with, where that magic happens, that really defines what we all love about this, besides just going out and shooting animals, is sitting around a dinner table, sharing food, and sharing good times. The fellowship component, sharing the day. And I don’t know anybody that does it better than here at La Paz. Thanks to your cooking, the food at La Paz is better than it’s been in 15 years. We were kidding around the other day. You would bring the food out, and everybody at the table would be making what I would describe as sex noises. Oh yeah.

Fede Garcia: You’re right.

Ramsey Russell: You know, and we started laughing.

Fede Garcia: You know why?

Ramsey Russell: Why?

Fede Garcia: Because our shop in the kitchen is not just about feeding bellies. It’s about feeding souls. You know what I mean?

Ramsey Russell: Feed the souls not the bodies.

Fede Garcia: It’s the soul talking.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, that’s a good point right there. You told me that you work for the federal government, and you’ve got one career, like once during a government career, you can take a six-month sabbatical. Do you think, like next year, do you think you’re going to, its this going to become your full-time vocation? Is it time for Chef Fede to retire from the government and be a chef full-time?

Fede Garcia: That’s the idea.

Ramsey Russell: That’s the idea?

Fede Garcia: We’re working on that.

Ramsey Russell: What is it like working so closely with Martha? I mean, for a long time, you all were apart. She’s been here, you’ve been at work, and now you all are both here. Is that good, bad?

Fede Garcia: Of course, it’s really good.

Ramsey Russell: It’s good.

Fede Garcia: We enjoy time together.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Fede Garcia: Working together. She’s my boss, you know that.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, I don’t know.

Fede Garcia: But I really enjoy working here. This is different. It’s not the same as when I was working in the office.

Ramsey Russell: I’ve noticed a lot of lodges I go to worldwide, they cook ten things, or fifteen things, or five things, depending on how long the hunt is. They’re going to cook pork chops, chicken, steak, and it’s just going to repeat itself through the season. Well, I’ve been here ten or eleven nights, twelve nights now, here la paz with you and we’ve never eaten the same thing twice.

Fede Garcia: Yeah, it’s a deal.

Ramsey Russell: So you don’t have a set menu? What inspires you to cook? Like, if you decide what you’re going to cook Monday night, is that just what you feel like cooking? Is it what you’re hungry for? Because, I mean, we’ve eaten just a vast variety of stuff here.

Fede Garcia: We have a schedule, you know?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, but you don’t stick to it.

Fede Garcia: We try to make different things. If the client says, “I love this dish,” we can do it again.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Fede Garcia: It’s not a problem. But the idea is to make every day a different meal for a different experience for everybody.

Ramsey Russell: And customize what people like?

Fede Garcia: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: The one thing I was disappointed we didn’t eat, but I was so full I didn’t dare ask, is that you have perfected, I understand, the catfish, the Sautéed recipe with the cream sauce and capers. What other recipes are you working on?

Fede Garcia: With catfish? You can do empanadas.

Ramsey Russell: Yes, which is great. We’ve had the fish empanadas.

Fede Garcia: We used to make a little cake for a starter with the mashed potato on top, which is great.

Ramsey Russell: Nancy bragged when she was here. She said that was her favorite appetizer.

Fede Garcia: Great.

Ramsey Russell: The sautéed catfish with mashed potatoes on top.

Fede Garcia: It’s really good.

Ramsey Russell: Well, Fede, I appreciate you. I’m excited for your future. I’m excited for the changes here at La Paz. The clients certainly love it, and I think you’ve nailed it, how you approach feeding clients. It’s food for their soul, not their body. Thank you very much for doing that.

Fede Garcia: Thank you, Ramsey.

Chatting with Martha Martha of Argentina’s Duck Hunts

Ramsey Russell: Martha, wrapping it up. We’re one month into a three-month hunting season. It seems to be going good. How’s it going for you?

Martha: Awesome. I cannot believe it. I mean, I think it’s the best season ever, as regards hunting, as regards people, as regards memories. It’s amazing.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. I’m going to guess 15 or 16 years we’ve been coming to La Paz. It’s one of our most successful trips. We had this idea to do a couples trip years ago because, unlike a lot of other hunts, we’re not just stuck in the middle of BFE. We’re near a city, near some things to do, and we’ve got someone like yourself to take care of the ladies and entertain them. The ladies that came on today, the ladies that came on last year’s episode, they loved it, they had a great time, and they didn’t even go to the field and pull the trigger. They just did whatever you do when you’re not hunting. They had a great time and they loved it. But, boy, I tell you what, moving to this new lodge has been a blessing. I’ve really enjoyed this. And Fede, bringing you on to feed our souls, not just our bodies, has been an amazing culinary adventure.

Martha: Thank you. Well, the feedback I get from clients is that they feel like they’re at a ranch, like a family ranch.

Ramsey Russell: Yes.

Martha: So, they are all together. It’s like we enjoy every moment together, not just the meals. You know, we have the living room. They can sit there, have coffee, and talk. We have the patio here, where sometimes we have lunch when the weather’s good. And they liked it.

Ramsey Russell: Well, yesterday afternoon, we came back from dove hunting. It was beautiful. It was sunny. You all had the Adirondack chairs pulled out in the sunshine, right under the parakeet nest.

Martha: Having cocktails.

Ramsey Russell: You all were having a good old time. Everybody was laughing and in a good mood, when they got back.

Martha: Yeah. They were just talking about that inside. They were saying that, it’s been a great week. We went to two different vineyards. We went to the city for shopping. We went to another big city, about an hour and 20 minutes from here, for shopping. And we visited old churches, a lot of squares full of trees and fountains. It was a lot of fun.

Ramsey Russell: It was a lot of fun. Talk about the hunting just a little bit, because back in late April, early May, you were messaging me. You were at an important meeting. People who have listened to the podcast before are aware, they’ve heard me talk on social media and on the podcast about anti-hunters in Argentina. You know, Martha, last year and the year before, it was real touch and go since COVID ended. We were real concerned about the future of hunting in Argentina. It was daunting. It was like, “Holy cow, these people are going to win.” But something happened at the meeting here in Andres Rios, and it seems to be the tide kind of turned completely. What happened?

Martha: First of all, the change of government. Andres changed government last December. And this guy is pro activities that will bring the economy relief from all those horrible years that we lived before.

Ramsey Russell: He’s a libertarian. He’s very conservative. He’s all about, like somebody sent me a video on social media. He’s just, like, throwing away a deck of cards, he just cut through government agencies, saying, “No more, no more, no more.” Fired all these government agencies to get rid of waste and fraud.

Martha: Well, that’s the national government. But this guy in the province of Entre Rios is working together with the national government, and they will do whatever to, you know, create jobs.
Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Martha: And he knows all the jobs hunting brings to the table.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, tourism.

Martha: Yeah, tourism.

Ramsey Russell: Somebody told me at SCI this year, one of the other outfitters told me that the new president had already sent some of his administration to meet with outfitters and say, “What do you need from me to make your business more successful and to increase hunting tourism in this country?” That’s crazy. And they all told him, “Well, you need to let these ducks start coming back.” He told me that presidential administrator made a phone call and got rid of a law that was in place. Now they’ve just got to work through the system. So it’s possible that in four or five or upcoming years, we will be able to bring some ducks back home.

Martha: Why not? I think so. You know, I have a gun store, and we sell licenses for big game where I live. And this government, I’m telling you, they brought the prices a little higher because they think that, we need to develop some other areas. So that’s fine. And they check on us every time we go hunting, but everything’s fine. Once you have the paperwork, they’re fine with it, and they let you work. They just want to make sure that, you know, we’re doing things right and we are giving people jobs.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Martha: Because right now, the crisis is real in Argentina. We have guides, we have stores that are not selling much. So, all the shopping we did, I mean, I went with the ladies to a leather store, and they ran out of purses.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Martha: They bought all the purses.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Martha: So, for those people, it means a lot.

Ramsey Russell: That puts food on their table. That affects life personally. And it’s a small economy within a larger economy. At that meeting you went to, there were some biologists there. What happened was, in several of these provinces, the outfitters themselves financed, they put their time and money into doing a count. They coordinated it with government observers to ensure there wasn’t any fraud.

Martha: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Then it went to a government office that ran the numbers.

Martha: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And these biologists from around the country showed up in Entre Rios. There were anti-hunters there sitting quietly on their hands. There were hunters there. There were organizations there. There were guides and restaurant owners. There were all these different community people at this meeting. And what did those biologists say? What did they tell the public?

Martha: They were able to say that in the province of Buenos Aires, there are 23 million ducks.

Ramsey Russell: Wow. Golly. That’s almost as much as the entire United States.

Martha: Oh my God. And in the province of Entre Rios, there are 9 million ducks.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Duck Numbers in Argentina

So, they were able to show how species populations vary according to different times of the year.

Martha: And in the province where I live, where duck hunting is prohibited, there are 3 million ducks.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Martha: Yeah. They were also able to show that they studied species. Okay. So, they were able to show how species populations vary according to different times of the year.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Martha: They study is taken, and this next August, they’re coming back here again. How do you call that, the pieces they’re going to test later? We call it pruebas, I don’t know, pruebs.

Ramsey Russell: They took all the data.

Martha: Yes. Right after duck season. They were able to demonstrate that hunting does not affect duck populations. And also the study is conducted right after winter, and winter is the main cause for ducks to die.

Ramsey Russell: Ducks die for reasons beyond hunting.

Martha: Exactly. They cannot find food, the temperatures drop. Well, I’m not sure if you remember, but this is the coldest year we’ve ever had at La Paz at this time of the year. So, that’s another main cause of duck death. But anyway, it doesn’t really affect the number of ducks.

Ramsey Russell: Right. Science back home has proven for years that you need habitat, environment, and a lot of luck to produce a lot of ducks. Hunting, really, they’ve accepted, it seems, that the science says the ducks we’re shooting would have died of natural causes, most likely, anyway.

Martha: Yes.

Ramsey Russell: There are some ducks will live to be 25 years old. Most ducks die within the first year or two of their lives, they just die of natural causes. Everything on the landscape wants to eat them. There are a lot of different environmental reasons they might die because of disease, lack of food, whatever.

Martha: And also, one of them said something very important. I mean, it caught my attention. He said, “I don’t discuss with fanatics.

Ramsey Russell: Fanatics.

Martha: Fanatics, I discuss facts, and I want duck populations to be healthy more than, what was the word he said, more than beautiful. I mean, because people come and say, “Oh, you shoot that little beautiful duck.” And he says, “I like to preserve a healthy population of ducks.”

Ramsey Russell: I think that’s something everybody, worldwide, even in North America, we need to deal with facts, not fanatics.

Martha: Exactly.

Ramsey Russell: And we need to deal with population levels, not the individual level. That’s a great point. You know, it’s been a wonderful year to be here in La Paz. Last year was dry. It’s been two years of drought since the pandemic. This year it was not. For example, last year, we chose not to hunt perdiz because of dry conditions and low productivity. Perdiz are the little partridge on the thing. This year, we took clients hunting perdiz who want to go. And the two weeks I was here, the perdiz hunting was nothing short of spectacular. There were people getting up 20 or 30 birds. Whether or not they could hit them all remains to be seen. But the clients I knew that were decent shots were coming back with their limits.

Martha: Yes.

Ramsey Russell: Really, really, walking a mile that way and a mile back, maybe going through a section of land and coming back with plenty of birds and leaving plenty of birds out there that they missed. That says something. The duck hunting has been just crazy good. There were more doves at that one feedlot than I can recall ever seeing in just one place. There’s a lot of pigeon hunting this year, Martha, you know, the first year we were here, it had rained. We couldn’t get into a certain pigeon spot. I assumed you all meant where we hunted last year. The pigeon hunting was good, but we went out this past week on a pigeon hunt, and it was unlike anything. I don’t get rattled hunting, even with birds coming in at duck numbers. I don’t get rattled. I just, you know, I’m just hunting. I got rattled. There were so many pigeons. It’d be a flock of 50 coming in from this way, and he tapped me on the back because 50 or more were coming from that way. And still over the trees, coming into the field, I could see another flock coming in. I got excited, and I shot, like, I was excited because I was missing some stuff there for a while.

Martha: Yeah, rain is good. We love rain. But when it doesn’t rain for a couple of days, that growth can get dry. Yeah, we know it’s going to be a good pigeon hunt. We just need to get there.

Ramsey Russell: We’re still waiting on the rosybills to show up. What’s so interesting is that everybody I’ve talked to in the entire country, nobody has a concentration of rosybills right now. They’re somewhere, they’re somewhere off in a river bottom waiting to come off into these marshlands. But all the other species have shown up, and they indeed have some healthy populations. What are you hearing from repeat clients? We have a lot of repeat clients that come here. What are they saying, they want to come back next year, obviously.

Martha: They love this place. What they love about this place is that it saves time. We’re closer to the fields. We save 25, 30 minutes.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, yeah.

Martha: Every day, back and forth. So it’s like an hour less.

Ramsey Russell: We sleep in another 15 or 20 minutes.

Martha: Yes, it’s very convenient. And it’s a beautiful place, very peaceful. We are in the middle of nowhere. We have a lot of birds flying here all day long. I bet we’re going to be shooting pigeons here pretty soon. Well, one guy actually said, “What if I buy this piece of land?”

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Martha: He was really happy here. And also, well, I was telling you, they feel like they are on a ranch, but it’s more like family.

Hunting the Heart of La Paz: A Team That Makes It Happen

Then we come out here to the country, have a great hunt and great hospitality, and there’s plenty to see and do for the wives.

Ramsey Russell: I like this a lot better. Some of the guests that came earlier, they had been at the other lodge, which overlooked the river. That was very nice and peaceful in the afternoons. And they were, well, I don’t know. You know, they came here and said, “Oh, this is much better. This is much nicer. It’s much more private.” You don’t hear barking dogs or music nearby. You’re out here, I feel like I’m in the middle of nowhere, but I’m not. I’m five minutes from town if I want to be. If I need to go to town to the pharmacy, or if I need to go shopping, it’s just right there. It’s very, very nice and convenient. What’s next for La Paz? We’ve got two more months. I was talking to Santa, Diego, Pacho, and all the boys out in the field yesterday. I said, you all just get started, we’ve got a lot more groups coming through here this year. But don’t you think we need to start trying to run more couples here?

Martha: I was going to say that. I was going to say that week of May, we need to make it longer, like maybe two or three weeks for couples.

Ramsey Russell: We have a two-week stretch or something to bring couples because we get a lot of calls. People are finding out. We’ve had, of course, some older groups, you know, older couples, the kids are gone, they’re grown up. Mom and Daddy can travel, but also some younger groups. Every year we do this, we have younger groups come in, also younger husbands and wives. It’s just like Mazatlán, which we call the honeymoon duck hunt. I think people are realizing that, hey, I can go and have fun, shoot, hunt, do things, but I have more fun if I bring my wife and she’s happy, she gets a vacation out of it. We start off with a night or three in Buenos Aires, paint the city red, and really see some cool stuff. Then we come out here to the country, have a great hunt and great hospitality, and there’s plenty to see and do for the wives. They love it.

Martha: They love it. They love it. Like yesterday, they were trying to pick a favorite food, a favorite drink, and I saw them talking here under the sun, sunbathing, and I said, guys, can I get you some coffee? And they looked at me and said, well, we were thinking about gin and tonic.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, gin and tonics were a hit. I did not know I liked gin and tonic like I do. But you bring up a good point about the favorite meal because I asked everybody this episode, what was your favorite meal? What was your favorite dessert? And basically, the answer was the next one. They liked it all. Nobody picked a favorite anything, they just liked it all. And I think next year, I got an idea, Mark. I got a great idea for making a little bit of money. Like, you know, when you go to a men’s store, you go to buy a suit, well, then they sell you a shirt and a tie and cufflinks. And I’ve got an idea. We need to weigh everybody when they show up.

Martha: We’re going to put a scale right there next to the door.

Ramsey Russell: And then weight everybody when they leave, and we’ll sell some Jenny Craig or Weight Watcher memberships.

Nicole Cooper: Oh, God, that would be.

Ramsey Russell: It was so funny. We had some clients this week saying, I’m done eating bread. I’m not going to eat any bread, or I’m only going to eat one serving, or I’m going to start skipping meals. And they were just piling it in.

Martha: And making more holes in their belts.

Ramsey Russell: Making more holes in their belts. But we had a client have to add a hole to his belt this week, myself included. But anyway, Martha, we appreciate everything. This is amazing. And I’ll tell you one last thing since I’m looking at it. You know, it’s wintertime here, and all the swimming pools in Argentina when you go. Swimming pools are not uncommon at a lodge in Argentina, but I’ve noticed in the wintertime, when I’ve shown up, they’re green like a duck cold. This one’s clean.

Martha: It’s clean.

Ramsey Russell: It’s too cold to go jump into, but if I wanted to, it’s ready to jump into.

Martha: One guy, Cleave.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Martha: Yeah. He came back from the afternoon hunt, and he was stripping from the truck all the way to the swimming pool and jumped in there.

Ramsey Russell: Well, there you go. But it’s ready to go. That’s a nice touch, It’s a nice touch. And, you know, one thing everybody has said for anybody listening. You know, we’re all duck hunters, and we know how to duck hunt. By God, we duck hunt ourselves. We got our decoys. We got our stuff. We clean our guns. We do everything, but it’s okay to go on vacation. And I hear this time and time again, and I see it time and time again. I show up with my guns, I show up with my stuff, I show up with my gear, but everything else falls into place. All I have to do is step out at 5:30, jump in the truck, and go to the duck hole, have fun, come back. Meals are waiting on me. Appetizers are waiting on me. I just put it in my laundry bag. I got clean clothes the next day. It’s easy, isn’t it?

Martha: We make it easy for them. It’s a target.

Ramsey Russell: And I try to tell everybody. It’s hard not to overpack when you come on a trip like this. What am I going to need? What am I going to do? But you all do laundry.

Martha: Oh, yeah. And it’s really good, really well done.

Ramsey Russell: The gaucho around here cleans my waders.

Martha: Yes.

Ramsey Russell: So they’re clean when I leave the lodge than they were at any time during their career. I mean, it’s too easy. It’s a vacation. Thank you, Martha. Thank you for everything you do. Folks, you all been listening to Martha. We’re wrapping up this episode here in La Paz, Argentina, with a couple’s trip for you guys that want to come experience Argentina for the first time or want to come experience the best of Argentina. Ducks, doves, decoying pigeons. Perdiz, go fishing if you like. The fishing has been amazing this year, and everybody talks about the field lunches. If you want to bring your wife on a vacation, and trust you me, she wants to come. Birds of a feather flock together in the same way that all of us duck hunters show up. We don’t know each other yet, but we get to know each other in the best way possible. We go out and we duck hunt, and we dove hunt, and we pigeon hunt, and we’re riding back and forth in the trucks, and we’re huddled up around a dinner table, feeding our souls, not just our bodies, as Feday so eloquently put it. You find your tribe, and you know what? What they all learned is the wives of duck hunters, birds of a feather flock together also. They hit it off. They’ve got something big in common, which is us. Thank you all for listening to this episode of Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere Podcast from La Paz, Argentina. See you next time.